San Antonio voters overwhelmingly approving visitor tax

The Associated Press

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, May 9, 2008

Voters in San Antonio on Saturday were overwhelmingly approving four proposals that would use visitor taxes to fund $415 million in civic improvement projects for the area, according to early unofficial returns.

Bexar County voters were deciding whether to extend a 1.75 percent tax on hotel rooms and a 5 percent tax on short-term car rentals to fund four separate propositions: improvements to the San Antonio River, new youth and amateur athletic facilities, renovations of arts centers and upgrades to rodeo grounds and arenas, including the AT&T Center.

The Bexar County venue tax was originally approved in 1999 to help pay for the AT&T Center, where the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs play.

In the race for mayor of the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch, the councilman who pushed for one of the country's most sweeping anti-illegal immigration measures was defeating a businessman who opposed the costs of trying to enforce the ordinance. Tim O'Hare led Gene Bledsoe without about a third of the voting precincts counted.

O'Hare steered the City Council into a November 2006 ordinance barring apartment rentals to illegal immigrants. The rule was revised months later to include exemptions for minors, seniors and some families with mixed immigration status.

Bledsoe was treasurer of a group that opposed the ordinance.

Residents endorsed the rental ban 2-to-1 in May 2007 during the nation's first public vote on a local government measure meant to combat illegal immigration. A federal judge later blocked Farmers Branch from enforcing its ordinance. The case remains in court.

Officials say Miller's tales include an engagement to Eagles drummer Don Henley and stints as a backup singer for Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne. Miller has also spoken of a brother who died in Vietnam.

Family members, school officials and spokesmen for the famous musicians contacted by The Dallas Morning News said none of the stories are true.

Miller said she never made some of the claims and attributed other discrepancies to dirty politics by Branson.

Registered sex offender James Brian Sliter was losing by a large margin to two others in the race for mayor of the small town of Wilmer.

Sliter, who was arrested in 2004 when he was caught in a police sting trying to arrange sex with a 15-year-old girl on the Internet, withdrew from the mayoral race on March 28. However, his name remained on the ballot.